Thursday, October 5 Arlington High School’s students and staff flooded the streets of their town to show their school spirit and participate in the 2017 lip dub. In the past, AHS has competed in lip dub contests against participating schools which has ultimately set a trend for the years to come.

A lip dub is a video the school makes of students lip-syncing a song of their choice while doing crazy acts. The video captures the entire school body, including teachers and staff that gets posted on YouTube. On rare occasions, it has even been enrolled in a contest.

The leadership teacher, Mr. Ballew informed that “The last lip dub we produced was roughly two years ago. In the past, we filmed a lip dub four years in a row which was strenuous on the school’s spirit. Like anything you do repeatedly, the normality overpowers the excitement at some point so we discontinued filming one every year.”

To bring that excitement back, AHS decided to stray away from their original lip dub features and filmed this year’s on the streets of their little town. This years’ lip dub transferred out of the walls of the high school and was produced on Olympic Avenue in Arlington. People lined both sides of the road along first and third street, awaiting the camera to pass by and give them their few seconds of spotlight.

A significant amount of community members showed their support as well by participating in the lip dub. Citizens from all ages stood along the curb decked out in blue and gold to show their pride. Three graduates from Arlington’s class of 1967 even displayed their spirit by showing up with a sign and a smile on their face!

Justice Jackson (‘18) said, “Filming the lip dub in a different location other than the school was unique and a fresh outlook for the school. Having the community as a part of our lip dub showed how united our community is and it was amazing to see so much pride our town takes in our school.”

Filmmaker and editor John Cook (‘18) said, “at the beginning of the school year Ballew asked me if I would edit and film the lip dub from start to finish so I agreed. I have been making music videos and have been pursuing film school so I couldn’t turn down this opportunity. We spent a large amount of time working on this lip dub in order to produce the best one the school has ever seen. We even went to the extent of shutting down an entire street!”

Arlington High School went above and beyond by producing a unique lip dub while bringing together the entire community as well. Cook said, “The lip dub will be available to watch around October 18.” Overall, this year’s lip dub was a taste of individuality and sets the standard for future years at Arlington High School.